A Red River Waste Solutions trash employee was caught on residential surveillance camera tossing a bin in the truck and crushing it before driving off.
A video shared with WANE 15 by Padraig Lyons appears to show a Red River truck pull up to a home along Westbrook Drive on Tuesday morning. The video shows two workers outside of the truck as one of them loads a trash bin into the back of the truck.
The bin then appears to fall into the truck. The employee appears to attempt to pull the bin out for two seconds before letting go.
The truck’s compactor then appears to engage and the truck then drives off.
Lyons said he was watching the workers live on his home surveillance camera feed.
When he realized both the truck and his trash can were gone, he chased down the truck which was already two houses down the street.
One of the worker quickly told him to call the city to ask for a new trash can.
” I was mad because when I came out the guy just didn’t seem to care that much,” Lyons said. “He just didn’t seem that interested in answering me. He just gave me a really quick answer and walked away.”
Lyons was displeased that the worker didn’t say sorry and that he never planned to warn him of what had happened. If Lyons had not been watching, he never would have known what happened.
Red River’s Vice President for Business Development Steven Smith explained what happened. He said the trash can’s metal bar that the truck grips to lift it up, broke off. The can then slides into the truck below the compactor. This bar break is something that happens from time to time due to natural wear down or chronic overloading of the bin.
Once the can fell into the hopper, Smith said it’s too dangerous for a worker to go in and grab it because an extremely powerful blade is crushing the trash.
Smith is apologetic to Lyons.
“I do sympathize with you or felt like you weren’t treated with enough care, but from our standpoint we would like you to know there’s protocols in place for this,” he said. “Our employees are told just to be nice, but be brief. Tell the customer what happened and you can call 311, and then vacate the scene.”
Lyons called 311 after the incident got his new trash can from the city Wednesday morning.
Smith said his workers acted appropriately on Tuesday, but has reminded them that the next time a can falls into the truck, they have the the option of using the rake or shovel in their truck to try to pull the trash bin out.
Red River has experienced a host of troubles since it took over the city’s trash and recycling contract in January. It has been fined thousands of dollars due to missed collections.
